Decking



Aug. 23, 1938., c. F. DAVIS v DECKING Original Filed Feb. '7, 1933 HIHV II1:11. i R

I W INVENTQR.

MSHMAMW ATTORNEY. I

Patented Aug. 23, 1938 um'reo STATES 2,127,6tl v D'ECKING Clarke F. Davis, Short Hills, N J., assignor to American Cyanamid & Chemical Corporation, New York, N. Y., a corporation of Delaware Continuation of application Serial No. 655,591, February 7, 1933, now Patent No. 2,083,987. This application September 24, 1935, Serial No.

1 Claim.

The present application is a continuation of co-pending application 655,591, now Patent No. 2,083,987.

The present invention relates to a deck such as a floor or roof deck constructed of precast units.

The principal object of the invention is the provision of a deck construction as above, so arranged that it is not necessary for all of the elements going to make up the deck to be of a length such as will extend between the deck supports. In other words, one or more units going to make up the deck may completely float between supports.

The above construction is made possible by arranging the elements with tongues and grooves along two or more edges so that when assembled, each unit being interlocked or tongued and grooved to its neighbors, will be satisfactorily supported by the neighboring units irrespective as to whether or not that unit is directly supported by a supporting element.

To this end, the invention contemplates a deck such as a floor or roof deck made of precast units preferably, though not necessarily, provided with metal members on at least opposite longitudinal edges and preferably on all four edges, where the metal members are bonded to the slab unit on which it occurs, and where the metal members on opposite edges are complementarily tongued and grooved.

The invention contemplates that the length of the sum of the units will be less than the distance between deck supports and that these units may be so arranged in the deck that they do not extend over any of the supports and, as a consequence, are supported entirely by the interlocking edge engagement with the neighboring units.

arrangement, combination and construction of parts more fully hereinafter described and shown in the accompanying drawing.

In the drawing-- Fig. 1 illustrates diagrammatically a plan view of a deck constructed according to this invention;

Fig. 2 is a partial sectional view along the lines A--A and B-B of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a view similar to Fig. 2 showing a modified form of slab.

Referring now with particularity to the embodiment illustrated, a slab A is shown of precast material I such as gypsum or the like having metal edges 2 and 3 bonded to opposite edges The invention further consists in the novel thereof. As shown, the metal edge 2 is preferably tongued and the metal member 3 complementarily grooved so as to interlock together in a tight frictional joint when the parts are assembled together as in Fig. 1. By turning down the 5 edge 4 of both of the parts 2 and 3, the metal members .are securely and mechanically bonded to the slab body I and this prevents inadvertent separation during handling or erection.

As shown in Figs. 2 and 3, the slab body I loi may be solid, that is, of uniform thickness throughout as indicated in the former figure or the slab body may be provided with a bisquetted depression 5 as shown in Fig. 3. The latter is preferred where deep sections are to be used as this modification consequentlypermits a greater depth I-beam formed by the tongued and grooved metal members without at the same time correspondingly increasing the weight of the slab body. The top and bottom of the metal members 2 and 3 may be flush with the slab body! as shown in Fig. 2 or they may be at either or both sides of the slab and overlay 6 of the material of which the slab is made as shown in Fig. 3. Preferably the part 6 extends only over the metal member 2 at the top thereof so that there is a metal to tr Jnetal contact with the deck support at the bot- In erecting slabs according to this invention, supports 7 and 8 are provided which may be beams, purlins or the like of any desired type, whether for floor or roof decks. A temporary shore 9 may be provided intermediate thereof in order to provide a temporary support until the slabs have been properly meshed. 35

As clearly shown in the drawing, slabs A and B are laid up on the supports '5, 8, and 9 with their short ends it! and ii meshed together by means of their metal edge member in a tight frictional tongued and grooved interlock. The 40 slabs C, D and E are then erectedflfollowed by F, G, H, I, J, K, L, etc. After the desired area has been erected, the temporary shore 9 is then removed. It is to be noted that the slabs D, K and others similarly placed are without any direct support by the members "I and 8, but that they are, on the contrary, supported by the edge interlock on all four edges with their neighboring units. The fact'that the metal members 2 5 and 3 of slabs A and F extend beyond and past the broken short end joints between slabs C and D together with the fact that slabs A, C and F cantilever over the support I provides adequate support for that end of slab D. Likevwise slabs B, E, and G serve the same purpose for the other end of slab D.

The above construction, therefore, provides a system wherein the length of an individual unit is not dependent in any way upon support spacmg 01 Vice versa.

Obviously any type of floor or roof finish may be applied directly over the top of the deck thus constructed either with or without filling materials in between.

While the invention has been shown and de scribed with particular reference to an embodiment, yet this is to be taken as illustrative only and the scope of the invention is to be restricted only by the breadth of the claim.

I claim:

A building construction comprising in combination two spaced apart permanent supports, a surface area supported thereby, said area including a series of precast slabs, each slab having on opposite edges metal members bonded to the slabs, the metal members on opposite edges be ing complementarily tongued and grooved, adja cent edges of adjacent slabs being wedgingly interlocked together in a tongued and grooved joint, at least one of said slabs in the surface area being of a length less than the distance between supports, said slab being supported by the slabs engaging it.

CLARKE F. DAVIS.

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